1. Field of the Invention
A solar water heater assembly designed to be primarily used with swimming pools and including an automatic temperature control to regulate the function of the heater.
2. Description of the Prior Art
There are many types of solar heaters available in the prior art, but many of these are unnecessarily complex and normally are designed for specific applications. Typically, a great number of presently commercially available solar heaters are designed to achieve relatively high temperatures for use in residential or industrial hot water heaters or environment heaters. These prior art solar heaters designed to achieve relatively high temperatures are usually insulated and protected by container devices with transparent portions in order to efficiently maintain their high temperatures. This is unnecessary for a heater designed to raise the temperature of a large body of fluid only a few degrees. These prior art "high temperature" heaters are generally considered to be overly complex for applications such as swimming pools.
Generally, prior art solar heaters have either no temperature sensing devices or a temperature sensing device which is dependent only upon the output fluid temperature. As set forth above, the temperature range of the output liquid is the prime consideration of residential type water heaters. This situation is inadequate for a solar pool heating device because manual intervention is inefficient and for a pool heater, relative temperatures between the input and the output of the heater are important factors.
Therefore, a need exists for a solar heater adaptable for use with relatively large bodies of liquid which is easy to install, requires little or no maintenance, is of simple design and accordingly is inexpensive to construct. Such a heater should also be capable of automatic operation wherein activation of the device is dependent upon a predetermined temperature differential between the incoming and outgoing liquid of the heater to and from the body of water being treated.